A curiosity in the field of research comes from North Carolina: a new study has found that wealthier homes tend to have a greater diversity of bugs than homes in less affluent neighbourhoods.

Biodiversity can happen in your home too. A team of scientists from the California Academy of Sciences, North Carolina State University and the Natural History Museum of Denmark knows that biodiversity can also be measured at the microscopic level. And more often than not, the wealthier you are, the more stuff you have — more clothes, more cars, more living space - the more bugs you’ll be likely to have in your home.

The researchers concluded that the average home was host to around 61 different species of arthropods, with wealthier homes having a greater number of bug species (around 100), and less affluent homes having closer to 50 types of bugs. This was true regardless of the size of the home.

One possible explanation is the so-called luxury effect, a phenomenon first mentioned in a 2003 study that found wealthier neighbourhoods tend to have a larger diversity of vegetation, host to a larger diversity and quantity of bugs.